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Natural Nappy Balm?
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Never use a site that is selling a product as a research source. There is an inherent conflict there. -
@PetalPoppet2309, if they are selling products containing water withouht preservatives they are either 1) haven’t disclosed the full LOI and thus breached the regulations or 2) their products are not safe.
Please check mothercare and aveeno baby products. Large brands are much better as a benchmark.I saw small brands listing Emulsifying Wax NF in the LOI. They are just using the fact they are too small and regulators won’t bother.
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Look how simple: https://www.aveeno.co.uk/products/baby-daily-care-barrier-cream#ingredients
Just 5 ingredients!
Paraffinum Liquidum, Zinc Oxide, Polyethylene, Avena Sativa Kernel Flour, Sorbitan Isostearate
Paraffinum Liquidum - because it is safe, doesn’t cause allergies, and you don’t need to think about anti-oxidants.
Polyethylene - because it’s simple, safe, effective thickener for non-polar oils. Doesn’t cause allergies.
Avena Sativa Kernel Flour - doesn’t do much. It’s a claim ingredient. You can do exactly the same thing. Make a stable, clean and cost efficient product and add whatever claim ingredint you want.
Safety for consumer must be your first priority. -
Oh absolutely @Microformulation, it seems they’re scaring people away from other brands in order to use theirs. Once I found out the blog was attached to a brand I knew it wasn’t trustworthy.
@ngarayeva001 I thought that may be the case. Worrying really! For sure, I’ve been looking at far bigger brands for research as I know they won’t risk doing silly things. Safety for the parents and babies using my products has always been the priority, absolutely
I’m so glad I came to you all for advice and added the GMCY to my cream. I’ll be sending it to a lab for preservative testing and everything else once the formula is perfect -
In my practice, I have had so many horrible blogs and sales sites quoted and presented by clients as if they had conducted real research. In response, we have identified at least three criteria we require for a citation; footnotes to reputable journal articles supporting their assertions, a credentialed author and the site must NOT be a site selling or endorsing products.This partially came about due to the situation we had. We designed a sunscreen for a client which she loved and it met all the testing criteria. We assisted her in getting a CM, labels were printed, raw materials were at the CM and the project was scheduled for 3 days from that point, I get a frantic email from her. “We have to reformulate now!” I called her to calm her down. The issue at hand was that the pre-milled ZnO we were using had silica in the product as a processing aid. She had found someone on Etsy who was selling “silica free sunscreen.” When we looked at the “critical” citation, there were no footnotes, the person sold a silica free sunscreen and in the authors “bio” she stated, “I have a degree in marketing and enjoy ballroom dancing on the weekends.” Enough said.
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@Microformulation, you would then enjoy this article about cancirogens in skincare that would be allowed in the UK right after Brexit written by a freelance journalist and feminist campaigner:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/08/carcinogens-cosmetics-brexit-britain-eu-makeup -
Hey! Did my first test of the new formula, and it still very liquid. I’ve put it in cosmetics pots to set up (I don’t want to waste my airless dispensers on test runs), so we’ll see what happens. Is there a way to better incorporate the sterols? It seemed to mix in well, but I then found a small amount of it in a sort of pocket at the surface of one of the tins? We melted the butters and oils down, and incorporated the rest of the ingredients with a hand mixer as the mixture was cooling. Does it need to be heated also, or did we just not give it enough time be mixed in?
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Ahh, it seems to have separated, looks a lot like spoilt milk on top. It hasn’t set up yet, presumably because it’s warm. It seems so easy, is there anything major I must have done wrong @MarkBroussard ?
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Did you dissolve the sterols in the hot oils?The mildest version would be to heat up coconut oil to ~80°C and add the sterols, mix until dissolved (pure sterols won’t melt @ 80°C but rather slowly dissolve whereas pre-made pastes will). Once finished, stop heating. Now you have two possibilities, each with its advantages and disadvantages:Version 1: add the butters (which should readily melt) and then sunflower oil. The mixture should now be at around 40°C if I calculated well. Then incorporate zinc oxide and once at room temperature finish by adding the rest. Because of the higher viscosity, this strategy is often chosen when using a three roll mill for homogenisation of zinc oxide or other clumpy powders.Version 2: After turning down the heat, start by adding sunflower oil and zinc oxide. Because that oil mixture is of low viscosity, it will wetten the zinc oxide particles better and also results in a fairly thin suspension which is easier to homogenise with a stick blender. Then proceed by adding the butters and finish with the rest once cooled down.Depending on how finely you disperse zinc oxide, viscosity of your balm will be more or less different. I can’t calculate viscosity or melting point of the mixture because of the fractionated coconut oil which can be of very different quality in terms of said parameters. With native i.e. solid @ RT coconut oil I would guess that your balm without the zinc oxide is a soft butter once “ripened”: It is possible/likely that your balm settles to a more solid form after a few days due to formation of microscopic fat crystals. Especially cocoa butter has a weird behaviour regarding crystal structure/form: Depending on the speed of cooling and the mixing during cooling, different types and sizes of crystals ripen and the resulting butter gets coarser/grainier of softer/smoother. That’s one of the reasons why there’s good and bad chocolate
.Just in case you want to go super safe: Heat zinc oxide in the oven to “sterilise” it as I mentioned in one of my first posts.Whether or not you should heat everything except the preservative/antioxidant I honestly don’t know. Likely not but I lack practical experience (in cosmetics, practical experience is often more valuable than theory). -
Ahhhh… I’ve added the sterols in whilst the mixture was too cold. Thank you for all that. It’s so interesting! So next thing is to do another two batches, one using the first method, and the other the second, and see how they turn out. I’m sieving the zinc oxide in so there are less clumps to deal with.
In method 2, am I able to homogenise with the hand mixer or is it better off being an immersion blender? -
It sounds like you’re making a mistake in using a handmixer … all you really need is a stirrer. I suspect what you are seeing is that you are introducing lots of air into the concoction with the handmixer and when you pour into the pots the air is bubbling up to the surface forming what looks to be a second layer.
Put all of your oils & butters into a beaker … heat to 80C to 85C so all ingredients are melted and you have a homogeneous liquid. Stir the hot liquid @ 300 RPM and add-in the Acai Sterols and continue stirring until the Acai Sterols are dissolved. Once the Acai Sterols are dissolved, sift-in the Zinc Oxide while stirring @300 RPM and continue stirring until you are ready to pour into pots.
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Got you. Thanks Mark, don’t know what I would do without you guys! ❤️
The other thing was fairly unrelated honestly. How would a brand go about finding a good quality lab/manufacturing service to work with? What are the signs to look for? I am in the UK, and though I know you run one in the US Mark. I suppose I’d need to start working with someone based based here? For future reference ☺️ -
Back from a walk with the dogs and some fresh air…Sure, heating everything works too, reduces eventually present germs and is probably easier/faster with larger batches. On the other hand, I for my part like cold processing. Adding the native butters later seems just more gentle and requires less heating/energy whilst speeding up the cooling process.Given that all your main ingredients are heat stable enough, any strategy will be okay. @MarkBroussard had a good input regarding stick blenders and air inclusions!The thing with zinc oxide is this: There are many different qualities available and some are quite hard to disperse evenly (not necessarily visible by the naked eye). If you have a suitable product, an overhead stirrer can certainly do the trick. Probably I was just unlucky and always got the “bad” stuff (although pharma grade) which required quite a bit of energy even if sieving beforehand.I had an idea (let’s see what more experienced people think of it): Adding GMCY in the beginning might be helpful: It’s a heat stable emulsifier and wetting agent and therefore might help with dissolving sterols and wetting zinc oxide particles.
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Hmm, interesting! We’ll have to see, thank you for that
I mean I’m not doing huge amounts of product at the moment, so I’ll try anything!
The cream has set up over night and it’s still a very balm-y consistency. I’m not sure that it would be able to be pushed through a dispenser lid. I presume I’m needing to add more oils and less of the butters? -
Ahh no! Ignore that, it’s soft as anything feeling it lol. It’s very gritty in texture though, is that the zinc oxide not being incorporated well enough?
I also found an overhead stirrer for £50 on Amazon, is that good enough or will it be rubbish quality? I don’t mind investing in a good one if it will last. It may be a really stupid question, but I can put beakers on my electric stove top can’t I? I doesn’t have to be actual flame? I’m going to kick myself for even asking but I don’t want to break beakers lol. -
Gritty is usually zinc oxide. What you can try: Take a spoonful and put it on a very flat surface like a glass plate -> rough milk glass is actually better because it helps rupturing aggregates. Now spread it very thin with a straight-edge tough spatula or similar. You’ll see “empty” traces if there’s large zinc oxide agglomerates. Do that over and over again until the thin layer is homogeneous. Way back in old apothecary times, this was how you did it. Some months back, lacking a three roll mill which does the same but faster and without manpower I had to do it myself (well, as superior I had the apprentices do it :smiley: ) when preparing a 50% salicylic acid vaseline which is basically the same regarding handling. Even looking at the poor girls smearing spoon by spoon by spoon made me sweat! It took them forever to make those 100 g. (I know, that was evil but they needed to learn something… like don’t trust your boss if he asks “Wanna make some ointment? It’ll be fun!”)Quality beakers are very heat resistant, a stove is way better than open flames because of even heat distribution an no soot.
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The grittiness could be Zinc Oxide or Shea Butter or both. If you add some Polyhydroxystearic Acid (0.8%) to better disperse the Zinc Oxide.
Yes, you can put beakers on an electric stove top to heat up your mixture
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Lol @Pharma, I love that, that’s so funny! Poor apprentices.
Ooh, I’ve just had a look at the Polyhydroxystearic Acid, that looks like it could be a good idea. I just want to make an amazing, SAFE, natural product that parents can be fully confident using. Thanks @MarkBroussard
Glad I haven’t redone the labels yet! Lol
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Re. Labels, if you’re in the UK I recommend Diginate. We use them to do our circular metallic logo labels. Really nice.
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These stripes are all from yesterday’s batch, half we put in the fridge (just to see what happened if we cooled it all the way down), the middle and the right stripe is that half. The other half was just put in a cool, dry cupboard to “set”. The fridge lot was a lot smoother in texture when I felt it, but seems to disappear to almost nothing, just a thin oily layer on the skin. The cupboard pots fared a bit better, though they’re the ones that had the most gritty texture upon scooping it out with my fingers and on the skin, it still seems to disappear like the fridge cream, albeit not as much. Is this something this recipe will always do, or can I tinker with it in order to make it feel more substantial on the skin? This oily layer was how the old formula sat on contact with skin, and when I asked some friends to trial it, they unanimously said that it was weird to work with and they didn’t really like it. The only thing is that it seems I’d need to remove some of the oil, which means I could lose the ability to package it in an airless dispenser. A little confused on what to do, whether I may just have to like it or lump it with this kind of cream? Lol. -
Can you share the link to the stirrer? You can buy a simple chinese stirrer on Amazon.uk or ebay. More than sufficient for home use, but £50 sounds a bit cheap.
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So, you have now confirmed that the grittiness is from the Shea Butter. Shea often tends to become gritty if allowed to cool to room temperature, but the grittiness will be reduced if it is cooled rapidly.
You’ll have to play around with your butters to oils ratio go get a good compromise between skin sensorial and dispenser. You might want to make batches in series increasing the Cocoa Butter by 5% and reducing the oil of your choice by the same amount starting with the Sunflower Oil
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Of course, it’s this one:
https://www.camlab.co.uk/ecostir-laboratory-magnetic-stirrer-p53872.aspx
but on Amazon? -
Ooooh! Ok @MarkBroussard, that’s really helpful as always! I’ll definitely do them in sequence and see which I like better. Is it better to cool it rapidly in the fridge and then take it out after an overnight stay for example, or just leaving it in the cupboard? Would sourcing different shea change anything?
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No, Shea is pretty much Shea … there are different grades and levels of refinement, but it won’t make that much of a difference one way or the other. Yes, cool it quickly in the fridge for 20 to 30 min, take it out and let it continue to cool at room temp.
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